What's Happening in the Patch?

What's Happening in the Patch?

Camellia japonica ‘Royal Velvet’

LOTS we have been really busy doing things and our community garden is really coming along that is why we haven’t blogged for a while. We are so lucky to have a wood workshop on site as the participants have made us many fantastic things. A part from helping us build the fence, they have made us a bird feeder, a bird box, a great stand for the old bath which will eventually become a worm farm and many many garden stakes. Plus a lovely tool box to hold our tools.

Spring has also sprung and everything is growing at great guns. The broad beans are flowering, the lettuce are nearly ready to pick and the silver beet and rocket has finally settled in and beginning to grow.

We have had a few issues, our local black crow (as much as I like them) decided it was rather fun to snap of the broad beans and pull out the cauliflower plants for no particular reason. She/he was then dropping them on the ground, so not even for food but for entertainment. WELL, that was definitely an unauthorised activity, so we covered the broad beans with chicken wire and the boys built a fantastic trellis that is removal and will fold up when not in use. To deter our resident bored crow, we put bits of shade cloth on the trellis hoping it would flap in the wind and scare she/he off. And so far, it seems to have worked.

The other issue was the broccoli and peas weren’t happy, in fact they were going backwards and in danger of dying. So we applied a very small handful of blood and bone around each plant and then watered it in well. A week later, we sprinkled our compost around each plant and it seems to have done the trick. Both have picked up and beginning to look healthy.